he very beautifully and
potently said that the Republic of the Netherlands had given hospitality
in the days that are past to English Puritans and French Huguenots and
Polish refugees and Portuguese Jews, and prospered; and I thought, as I
read that letter, "Why, then, if the Republic of the Netherlands was so
hospitable to other nations, surely we ought to be hospitable to all
nations, especially to Hollanders." Oh, this absurd talk about "America
for Americans!" Why, there isn't a man here to-night that is not
descended from some foreigner, unless he is an Indian. Why, the native
Americans were Modocs, Chippewas, Cherokees, Chickasaws, and Seminoles,
and such like. Suppose, when our fathers were trying to come to this
country, the Indians had stood on Plymouth Rock and at the Highlands of
the Navesink, and when the Hollanders and the Pilgrim Fathers attempted
to land, had shouted, "Back with you to Holland and to England; America
for Americans!" Had that watchword been an early and successful cry,
where now stand our cities would have stood Indian wigwams; and canoes
instead of steamers would have tracked the Hudson and the Connecticut;
and, instead of the Mississippi being the main artery of the continent,
it would have been only a trough for deer and antelope and wild pigeons
to drink out of. What makes this cry of "America for the Americans" the
more absurd and the more inhuman is that some in this country, who
themselves arrived here in their boyhood or only one or two generations
back, are joining in the cry. Having escaped themselves into this
beautiful land, they say: "Shut the door of escape for others." Getting
themselves on our shores in the life-boat from the shipwreck, they say:
"Haul up the boat on the beach, and let the rest of the passengers go to
the bottom." Men who have yet on them a Holland, or Scotch, or German,
or English, or Irish brogue, are crying out: "America for the
Americans!" What if the native inhabitants of heaven (I mean the angels,
the cherubim, and the seraphim, for they were born there) should say to
us when we arrive there at last, "Go back. Heaven for the Heavenians!"

Of course, we do not want foreign nations to make this a convict colony.
We wouldn't let their thieves and anarchists land here, nor even wipe
their feet on the mat of the outside door of this continent. When they
send their criminals here, let us put them in chains and send them back.
This country must not be made th